More guns
More guns to solve our gun-violence problems? That's like a 19th-century quack doctor who prescribes leeches, and when told the patient is getting worse, says “More leeches.”
DAVID HATCHER
Winston-Salem
Making a difference
The recent horrific catastrophe in Connecticut has brought many thoughts and questions into mind. This is probably the most senseless tragedy in my 70 years on this earth and I wonder what the cause of all this violence is. What/who can we blame? Is it government, parents, television, guns that don't shoot themselves, drugs, computers, pornography or the Godless society we have evolved into?
It is a combination of all these things that has created the complex problems we are facing. It does involve drugs, guns, video games that teach violence, the removal of God from our everyday lives and certainly the mental-health issue. Mental-health assistance is very hard to acquire and is grossly underfunded. Even after families recognize someone's need for help, it seems that a tragedy must occur before the assistance needed can be administered. The Michael Hayes case is a very good and graphic example of this situation.
We wonder why help is not more readily available since most all of these incidents are caused by the mentally ill. All of these things have developed into a very dangerous “New World” culture we live in.
So, we as a society need to ask ourselves: “What can I do to make a difference?” Remember, one woman, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, was able to get organized prayer removed from our schools. Maybe we should consider what the Bible teaches in James 4:7, that if we submit ourselves to God and resist the devil, he will flee from us.
JESSE ADAMS
Winston-Salem
A safety suggestion
I recently emailed one of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school-board members regarding a suggestion I have to keep kids safe in our schools. This was, of course, because of the recent massacre in Newtown, Conn.
Since the school board cannot afford school resource officers in all elementary and middle schools, I am suggesting charging a “protection fee” for each student and teacher in all schools. I feel confident that if each student/teacher/administrator/employee in the system were charged a nominal fee of $25-$50 per person (actual amount would be determined by number of people in system vs. cost of armed security), that would be enough to pay for the program. I am sure parents and/or grandparents would be very willing to pay for the protection of their loved ones. And, if by chance there are families who can't afford the fee, the additional money collected from students who already have SROs would cover the cost of those students.
I hope my suggestion will be taken seriously. We do not need to continue to have our kids at the mercy of some deranged person who could walk into any school at any time and massacre people before anything could be done about it. I truly believe that an armed professional at the door of our schools would be a great deterrent to any person thinking about attacking innocent children.
KAREN HOLDER
Kernersville
Finger-pointing
Let the finger-pointing commence. Everybody’s busy blaming the tragedy in Newtown, Conn., on whatever they were already against: guns, mental illness, atheists, video games, pornography, same-sex marriage, culture or sugary sodas.
But we don’t know all the facts yet. Even if one’s chosen scapegoat turns out to be responsible for this incident, it doesn’t mean that the same scapegoat is responsible for all such incidents.
I wish everyone would just shut up and think about it for a couple months before spouting off — especially those holier-than-thou TV preachers and preacher/politicians, who see opportunity in tragedy and are eager to exploit it.
RICKY S. PHILLIPS
Winston-Salem
Conclusions
The writer of the letter “Irony” (Dec. 16) concludes, “the real war on women plays out daily in the lyrics of hip hop music and its culture.” My, what a wide brush she paints with.
I can likewise conclude: the real war on sobriety and faithfulness plays out daily in the lyrics of country music and its culture.
Because if you’ve heard one country song, you’ve heard them all, right?
DONNY MARTIN
Winston-Salem
Sum It Up
The Sum It Up question from Sunday was: Has 2012 been a good year?
Well, I was disappointed in the election, our family survived a serious health issue, I am a year older, the inmates are still in charge of the asylum in D.C. and our troops are still not home.
But we survived, the country will survive and with hope our military will get to come home soon. In fact, there were so many more blessings than problems and God was always there, so I have to quote Sinatra: “it was a very good year.”
KEN HOGLUND
Wedding photos are wonderful Mike. An elegant ceremony and friend filled festive reception.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations Mike and Susan.
LTE #2 - Yes, too bad that the violent monster Madalyn Murray O'Hair took her Bushmaster into the schools and murdered Christian prayer for all, thus depriving us of the peaceful morality of the Christian faith:
ReplyDelete16 But of the cities of these people which the Lord thy God doth giue thee for an inheritance, thou shalt saue aliue nothing that breatheth:
17 But thou shalt vtterly destroy them, namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hiuites, and the Iebusites, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee:
___Deuteronomy 20
So Ioshua smote all the countrey of the hils, and of the South, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings, hee left none remayning, but vtterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded.
Joshua 10:40
King James Bible, 1611
And don't forget the great Jerusalem love-in. After breaching the walls of Jerusalem in 1099, the Christian Crusaders slaughtered almost every single inhabitant of the Holy City. According to the Medieval chronicle, the Gesta Danorum "the slaughter was so great that our men waded in blood up to their ankles."
They killed 30-40,000 Muslim and Jewish men, women and children. The few thousand survivors were auctioned as slaves at the gate of the city.
Oh yeah, and then there was Constantinople, 1204, wherein Christian Crusaders massacred Eastern Orthodox Christians and stole or destroyed many ancient Roman and Greek works of art. The number slaughtered is unknown, but an estimated 15,000 survivors were left homeless.
Just a couple of many examples of Christian charity and morality.
More recently, we have dozens of Christian terrorists groups active in the US, and just a few months ago 'Christian protesters traveled across the country to Dearborn, Mich., where they taunted attendees and even held a severed pig’s head for three days at the annual Arab International Festival. The protests turned violent Sunday, and by the end of the day as many as 10 people were facing disorderly conduct or assault charges, according to ABC News Detroit affiliate WXYZ.
“You’re going to burn in hell,” a missionary reportedly yelled at a group of Arab-American boys, while other protesters held anti-Muslim signs that made bigoted remarks about Islam and its prophet Mohammed, including “Islam is a religion of blood and murder” and “Muhammad (Islam’s prophet) is a … liar, false prophet, murderer, child molesting pervert.” '
ABC Jun 12 2012
Please bring Jesus back to the schools.
LTE #1 & 3 -
ReplyDeleteGloucester Township Shooting: 3 Police Officers Hurt In Shooting At NJ Police Station
12/28/12 10:39 AM ET EST 
Huffington Post
GLOUCESTER TOWNSHIP, N.J. — A man being processed on a domestic violence charge grabbed a gun and shot and injured three officers at a police station in southern New Jersey before he was killed.
It happened at the Gloucester Township police station in Camden County.
Police say gunfire erupted inside the station at about 5:45 a.m. Friday.
As the man was being processed on the complaint, he grabbed a gun and began firing. Three officers were hit before the suspect was shot and killed.
---------------------
Yes, please put more police officers in our schools, and a lot more guns, too. It will solve the problem, I promise.
I'm guessing a police station does not qualify as a "gun free zone". Hmm...I thought the presence of guns deterred would be gunmen. Seems that hypothesis has some holes.
DeleteGood afternoon folks! Can't believe it's already Friday and my vacation ends Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteLTE 1 - 4: Figured the avalanche of LTE's on guns had begun. The most reasonable of this batch came from Mr. Hatcher and Mr. Phillips. At The Big Event, I sat at a table with Wordly and her husband who teaches at a middle school as well as a neigbor of Stab's who is a substitute teacher. Both teachers found the idea of armed teachers and principals to be ludicrous. There are SRO's at schools in this district, but they serve to help keep peace in the hallway instead of preventing heavily armed maniacs from wreaking havoc. Ms. Holder's suggestion of collecting money would be far more effective going towards the lack of mental health assistance mentioned by Mr. Adams. Unfortunately, the number of parents who could afford the $25 - $50 per student is a lot fewer than Ms. Holder thinks.
LTE 5: Valid response from Mr. Martin. We all have our particular taste in music. Personally not into hip hop nor country, but I don't begrudge those who do listen to either.
Sum it up: Such a subjective question. To those who got married, had a child, found a new job, won the lottery, etc..it was a very good year. To those lost a loved one, lost their job, went into foreclosure, developed a grave illness, etc... it was a very bad year. It was decent year for me.
General "Stormin' Norman" Schwarzkopf is dead at 78. He won three silver stars in Viet Nam.
ReplyDeleteHis troops called him "the bear". During some controversy or another, he said to reporters "If you are looking for a disgruntled bear, you won't find him here, you'll find him in Kuwait", referring to a bear at the Kuwaiti zoo that was shot during the Iraqui occupation of Kuwait.
And former president GHW Bush is getting better and sent us a message - "You can put the harps back in the closet!" Unlike their children, he and Barbara have both sense and a sense of humor.
When the 112th Congress wraps up on Monday, they will forever be known as the least productive Congress in US history, leaving only 219 bills passed and signed with 20 more waiting for President Obama's signature.
ReplyDeleteAt least 40 of those bills concerned the renaming of post offices and other government buildings, a specialty of the GOP's "intellectual leader" Paul Ryan.
Meanwhile, the House wasted an enormous amount of time and taxpayers money by holding more than 30 votes that had no chance of passing to repeal Obamacare.
According to the AP,when asked for comment on the record of the 112th Congress, Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), pointed to the 115 times the Republican minority has held up a bill's passage by threatening to filibuster it. House Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) office did not return a request for comment (What a surprise!).
The lack of bipartisanship in Congress has been lost on no one. In April, Thomas Mann of the left-leaning Brookings Institution and Norm Ornstein of the conservative American Enterprise Institute published a Washington Post op-ed saying that the GOP deserves the blame for the dysfunction.
In 1948, Harry Truman dubbed the 80th Congress the "Do Nothing Congress". They passed 906 bills that became law.
Congress currently enjoys a near record minus 57.4% approval rating in the polls, while the President enjoys a plus 13% rating.